"Why, you fainted," said Lucan, laughing.
"Fainted?" repeated Julia.
"Of course; that's just what I feared; you must have been benumbed by the cold. Can you walk? Come, try."
"Perfectly well," she said, rising and taking his arm.
Like all those who experience sudden prostration, Julia remembered, but in a very indistinct manner, the circumstance that had brought about her fainting.
In the meantime they had resumed their walk slowly in the direction of the chateau.
"Fainted!" she repeated, gayly; "mon Dieu! how perfectly ridiculous!"
Then, with sudden animation:
"But what did I say? Did I speak at all?"
"You said, 'I am cold!' and away you went!"